Part II, 2017, Paper 1
Part II, 2017, Paper 1
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Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be an algebraically closed field.
(a) Let and be varieties defined over . Given a function , define what it means for to be a morphism of varieties.
(b) If is an affine variety, show that the coordinate ring coincides with the ring of regular functions on . [Hint: You may assume a form of the Hilbert Nullstellensatz.]
(c) Now suppose and are affine varieties. Show that if and are isomorphic, then there is an isomorphism of -algebras .
(d) Show that is not isomorphic to .
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be a topological space and let and be points of .
(a) Explain how a path from to defines a map .
(b) Prove that is an isomorphism of groups.
(c) Let be based loops in . Suppose that are homotopic as unbased maps, i.e. the homotopy is not assumed to respect basepoints. Show that the corresponding elements of are conjugate.
(d) Take to be the 2-torus . If are homotopic as unbased loops as in part (c), then exhibit a based homotopy between them. Interpret this fact algebraically.
(e) Exhibit a pair of elements in the fundamental group of which are homotopic as unbased loops but not as based loops. Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentConsider a sequence of measurable functions converging pointwise to a function . The Lebesgue measure is denoted by .
(a) Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Define for the sets
Prove that for any , one has and . Prove that for any .
(b) Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Prove that for any , there is a Borel set for which and such that converges to uniformly on as . Is the latter still true when ?
(c) Assume additionally that for some , and there exists an for which for all . Prove that .
(d) Let and be as in part (c). Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Prove that are integrable on and as . Deduce that converges weakly to in when . Does the convergence have to be strong?
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentA one-dimensional lattice has sites with lattice spacing . In the tight-binding approximation, the Hamiltonian describing a single electron is given by
where is the normalised state of the electron localised on the lattice site. Using periodic boundary conditions , solve for the spectrum of this Hamiltonian to derive the dispersion relation
Define the Brillouin zone. Determine the number of states in the Brillouin zone.
Calculate the velocity and effective mass of the particle. For which values of is the effective mass negative?
In the semi-classical approximation, derive an expression for the time-dependence of the position of the electron in a constant electric field.
Describe how the concepts of metals and insulators arise in the model above.
Paper 1, Section II,
comment(a) Define a continuous time Markov chain with infinitesimal generator and jump chain .
(b) Let be a transient state of a continuous-time Markov chain with . Show that the time spent in state has an exponential distribution and explicitly state its parameter.
[You may use the fact that if , then for .]
(c) Let be an asymmetric random walk in continuous time on the non-negative integers with reflection at 0 , so that
Suppose that and . Show that for all , the total time spent in state is exponentially distributed with parameter .
Assume now that has some general distribution with probability generating function . Find the expected amount of time spent at 0 in terms of .
Paper 1, Section I,
comment(a) Prove that every regular language is also a context-free language (CFL).
(b) Show that, for any fixed , the set of regular expressions over the alphabet is a CFL, but not a regular language.
Paper 1, Section II,
comment(a) Give an encoding to integers of all deterministic finite-state automata (DFAs). [Here the alphabet of each such DFA is always taken from the set , and the states for each such DFA are always taken from the set
(b) Show that the set of codes for which the corresponding DFA accepts a finite language is recursive. Moreover, if the language is finite, show that we can compute its size from .
Paper 1, Section I, E
commentConsider a Lagrangian system with Lagrangian , where , and constraints
Use the method of Lagrange multipliers to show that this is equivalent to a system with Lagrangian , where , and are coordinates on the surface of constraints.
Consider a bead of unit mass in constrained to move (with no potential) on a wire given by an equation , where are Cartesian coordinates. Show that the Euler-Lagrange equations take the form
for some which should be specified. Find one first integral of the EulerLagrange equations, and thus show that
where should be given in the form of an integral.
[Hint: You may assume that the Euler-Lagrange equations hold in all coordinate systems.]
Paper 1, Section I, G
commentLet be a binary code of length . Define the following decoding rules: (i) ideal observer, (ii) maximum likelihood, (iii) minimum distance.
Let denote the probability that a digit is mistransmitted and suppose . Prove that maximum likelihood and minimum distance decoding agree.
Suppose codewords 000 and 111 are sent with probabilities and respectively with error probability . If we receive 110 , how should it be decoded according to the three decoding rules above?
Paper 1, Section II, G
commentLet be a binary linear code. Explain what it means for to have length and . Explain what it means for a codeword of to have weight .
Suppose has length , rank , and codewords of weight . The weight enumerator polynomial of is given by
What is Prove that if and only if .
Define the dual code of .
(i) Let . Show that
(ii) Extend the definition of weight to give a weight for . Suppose that for real and all
For real, by evaluating
in two different ways, show that
Paper 1, Section I, C
commentIn a homogeneous and isotropic universe, describe the relative displacement of two galaxies in terms of a scale factor . Show how the relative velocity of these galaxies is given by the relation , where you should specify in terms of .
From special relativity, the Doppler shift of light emitted by a particle moving away radially with speed can be approximated by
where is the wavelength of emitted light and is the observed wavelength. For the observed light from distant galaxies in a homogeneous and isotropic expanding universe, show that the redshift defined by is given by
where is the time of emission and is the observation time.
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentThe evolution of a flat homogeneous and isotropic universe with scale factor , mass density and pressure obeys the Friedmann and energy conservation equations
where is the Hubble parameter (observed today with value ) and is the cosmological constant.
Use these two equations to derive the acceleration equation
For pressure-free matter and , solve the energy conservation equation to show that the Friedmann and acceleration equations can be re-expressed as
where we have taken and we have defined the relative densities today as
Solve the Friedmann equation and show that the scale factor can be expressed as
Find an expression for the time at which the matter density and the effective density caused by the cosmological constant are equal. (You need not evaluate this explicitly.)
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentDefine what it means for a subset to be a manifold.
For manifolds and , state what it means for a map to be smooth. For such a smooth map, and , define the differential map .
What does it mean for to be a regular value of ? Give an example of a map and a which is not a regular value of .
Show that the set of real-valued matrices with determinant 1 can naturally be viewed as a manifold . What is its dimension? Show that matrix multiplication , defined by , is smooth. [Standard theorems may be used without proof if carefully stated.] Describe the tangent space of at the identity as a subspace of .
Show that if then the set of real-valued matrices with determinant 0 , viewed as a subset of , is not a manifold.
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentConsider the dynamical system
where is a constant.
(a) Find the fixed points of the system, and classify them for .
Sketch the phase plane for each of the cases (i) (ii) and (iii) .
(b) Given , show that the domain of stability of the origin includes the union over of the regions
By considering , or otherwise, show that more information is obtained from the union over than considering only the case .
Hint: If then
Paper 1, Section II, 35D
commentIn some inertial reference frame , there is a uniform electric field directed along the positive -direction and a uniform magnetic field directed along the positive direction. The magnitudes of the fields are and , respectively, with . Show that it is possible to find a reference frame in which the electric field vanishes, and determine the relative speed of the two frames and the magnitude of the magnetic field in the new frame.
[Hint: You may assume that under a standard Lorentz boost with speed c along the -direction, the electric and magnetic field components transform as
where the Lorentz factor .]
A point particle of mass and charge moves relativistically under the influence of the fields and . The motion is in the plane . By considering the motion in the reference frame in which the electric field vanishes, or otherwise, show that, with a suitable choice of origin, the worldline of the particle has components in the frame of the form
Here, is a constant speed with Lorentz factor is the particle's proper time, and is a frequency that you should determine.
Using dimensionless coordinates,
sketch the trajectory of the particle in the -plane in the limiting cases and .
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentFluid of density and dynamic viscosity occupies the region in Cartesian coordinates . A semi-infinite, dense array of cilia occupy the half plane , and apply a stress in the -direction on the adjacent fluid, working at a constant and uniform rate per unit area, which causes the fluid to move with steady velocity . Give a careful physical explanation of the boundary condition
paying particular attention to signs, where is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid. Why would you expect the fluid motion to be confined to a thin region near for sufficiently large values of ?
Write down the viscous-boundary-layer equations governing the thin region of fluid motion. Show that the flow can be approximated by a stream function
Determine the functions and . Show that the dimensionless function satisfies
What boundary conditions must be satisfied by ? By considering how the volume flux varies with downstream location , or otherwise, determine (with justification) the sign of the transverse flow .
Paper 1, Section I, E
commentCalculate the value of the integral
where stands for Principal Value and is a positive integer.
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentThe Riemann zeta function is defined by
for .
Show that
Let be defined by
where is the Hankel contour.
Show that provides an analytic continuation of for a range of which should be determined.
Hence evaluate .
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) Let be a field and let . What does it mean for a field extension of to be a splitting field for over ?
Show that the splitting field for over is unique up to isomorphism.
(b) Find the Galois groups over the rationals for the following polynomials: (i) . (ii) .
Paper 1, Section II, D
commentA static black hole in a five-dimensional spacetime is described by the metric
where is a constant.
A geodesic lies in the plane and has affine parameter . Show that
are both constants of motion. Write down a third constant of motion.
Show that timelike and null geodesics satisfy the equation
for some potential which you should determine.
Circular geodesics satisfy the equation . Calculate the values of for which circular null geodesics exist and for which circular timelike geodesics exist. Which are stable and which are unstable? Briefly describe how this compares to circular geodesics in the four-dimensional Schwarzschild geometry.
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentLet be a graph of order satisfying . Show that is Hamiltonian.
Give an example of a planar graph , with , that is Hamiltonian, and also an example of a planar graph , with , that is not Hamiltonian.
Let be a planar graph with the property that the boundary of the unbounded face is a Hamilton cycle of . Prove that .
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentDefine a Lie point symmetry of the first order ordinary differential equation 0. Describe such a Lie point symmetry in terms of the vector field that generates it.
Consider the -dimensional Hamiltonian system governed by the differential equation
Define the Poisson bracket . For smooth functions show that the associated Hamiltonian vector fields satisfy
If is a first integral of , show that the Hamiltonian vector field generates a Lie point symmetry of . Prove the converse is also true if has a fixed point, i.e. a solution of the form .
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentLet be a normed vector space over the real numbers.
(a) Define the dual space of and prove that is a Banach space. [You may use without proof that is a vector space.]
(b) The Hahn-Banach theorem states the following. Let be a real vector space, and let be sublinear, i.e., and for all and all . Let be a linear subspace, and let be linear and satisfy for all . Then there exists a linear functional such that for all and .
Using the Hahn-Banach theorem, prove that for any non-zero there exists such that and .
(c) Show that can be embedded isometrically into a Banach space, i.e. find a Banach space and a linear map with for all .
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentState the Completeness Theorem for Propositional Logic.
[You do not need to give definitions of the various terms involved.]
State the Compactness Theorem and the Decidability Theorem, and deduce them from the Completeness Theorem.
A set of propositions is called finitary if there exists a finite set of propositions such that . Give examples to show that an infinite set of propositions may or may not be finitary.
Now let and be sets of propositions such that every valuation is a model of exactly one of and . Show that there exist finite subsets of and of with , and deduce that and are finitary.
Paper 1, Section I, B
commentA model of insect dispersal and growth in one spatial dimension is given by
where and are constants, , and may be positive or negative.
By setting , where is some time-like variable satisfying , show that a suitable choice of yields
where subscript denotes differentiation with respect to or .
Consider a similarity solution of the form where . Show that must satisfy
[You may use the fact that these are solved by
where
For , what is the maximum distance from the origin that insects ever reach? Give your answer in terms of and .
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentLet be the ring of integers in a number field , and let be a non-zero ideal of .
(a) Show that .
(b) Show that is a finite abelian group.
(c) Show that if has , then .
(d) Suppose , and , with and . Show that is principal.
[You may assume that has an integral basis.]
Paper 1, Section , G
commentDefine the Legendre symbol .
State Gauss' lemma and use it to compute where is an odd prime.
Show that if is a power of 2 , and is a prime dividing , then .
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentState the Householder-John theorem and explain how it can be used in designing iterative methods for solving a system of linear equations . [You may quote other relevant theorems if needed.]
Consider the following iterative scheme for solving . Let , where is the diagonal part of , and and are the strictly lower and upper triangular parts of , respectively. Then, with some starting vector , the scheme is as follows:
Prove that if is a symmetric positive definite matrix and , then, for any , the above iteration converges to the solution of the system .
Which method corresponds to the case
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentThe position and momentum operators of the harmonic oscillator can be written as
where is the mass, is the frequency and the Hamiltonian is
Assuming that
derive the commutation relations for and . Construct the Hamiltonian in terms of and . Assuming that there is a unique ground state, explain how all other energy eigenstates can be constructed from it. Determine the energy of each of these eigenstates.
Consider the modified Hamiltonian
where is a dimensionless parameter. Use perturbation theory to calculate the modified energy levels to second order in , quoting any standard formulae that you require. Show that the modified Hamiltonian can be written as
Assuming , calculate the modified energies exactly. Show that the results are compatible with those obtained from perturbation theory.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentFor a positive integer , we want to estimate the parameter in the binomial statistical model , based on an observation .
(a) Compute the maximum likelihood estimator for . Show that the posterior distribution for under a uniform prior on is , and specify and . [The p.d.f. of is given by
(b) (i) For a risk function , define the risk of an estimator of , and the Bayes risk under a prior for .
(ii) Under the loss function
find a Bayes optimal estimator for the uniform prior. Give its risk as a function of .
(iii) Give a minimax optimal estimator for the loss function given above. Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section II, J
comment(a) Give the definition of the Borel -algebra on and a Borel function where is a measurable space.
(b) Suppose that is a sequence of Borel functions which converges pointwise to a function . Prove that is a Borel function.
(c) Let be the function which gives the th binary digit of a number in ) (where we do not allow for the possibility of an infinite sequence of 1 s). Prove that is a Borel function.
(d) Let be the function such that for is equal to the number of digits in the binary expansions of which disagree. Prove that is non-negative measurable.
(e) Compute the Lebesgue measure of , i.e. the set of pairs of numbers in whose binary expansions disagree in a finite number of digits.
Paper 1, Section II, G
comment(a) Prove that if there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of a finite group , then the centre is cyclic.
(b) Define the permutations by
and let .
(i) Using the relations and , prove that has order 18 .
(ii) Suppose that and are complex cube roots of unity. Prove that there is a (matrix) representation of over such that
(iii) For which values of is faithful? For which values of is irreducible?
(c) Note that is a normal subgroup of which is isomorphic to . By inducing linear characters of this subgroup, or otherwise, obtain the character table of .
Deduce that has the property that is cyclic but has no faithful irreducible representation over .
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentBy considering the singularity at , show that any injective analytic map has the form for some and .
State the Riemann-Hurwitz formula for a non-constant analytic map of compact Riemann surfaces and , explaining each term that appears.
Suppose is analytic of degree 2. Show that there exist Möbius transformations and such that
is the map given by .
Paper 1, Section I, J
commentThe dataset ChickWeights records the weight of a group of chickens fed four different diets at a range of time points. We perform the following regressions in .
(i) Which hypothesis test does the following command perform? State the degrees of freedom, and the conclusion of the test.
(ii) Define a diagnostic plot that might suggest the logarithmic transformation of the response in fit2.
(iii) Define the dashed line in the following plot, generated with the command plot(fit3). What does it tell us about the data point 579 ?
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentThe Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club organises a tournament in which every match consists of 11 games, all of which are played. The player who wins 6 or more games is declared the winner.
For players and , let be the total number of games they play against each other, and let be the number of these games won by player . Let and be the corresponding number of matches.
A statistician analysed the tournament data using a Binomial Generalised Linear Model (GLM) with outcome . The probability that wins a game against is modelled by
with an appropriate corner point constraint. You are asked to re-analyse the data, but the game-level results have been lost and you only know which player won each match.
We define a new GLM for the outcomes with and , where the are defined in . That is, is the log-odds that wins a game against , not a match.
Derive the form of the new link function . [You may express your answer in terms of a cumulative distribution function.]
Paper 1, Section II, D
commentExplain what is meant by the microcanonical ensemble for a quantum system. Sketch how to derive the probability distribution for the canonical ensemble from the microcanonical ensemble. Under what physical conditions should each type of ensemble be used?
A paramagnetic solid contains atoms with magnetic moment , where is a positive constant and is the intrinsic angular momentum of the atom. In an applied magnetic field , the energy of an atom is . Consider . Each atom has total angular momentum , so the possible values of are .
Show that the partition function for a single atom is
where .
Compute the average magnetic moment of the atom. Sketch for , and on the same graph.
The total magnetization is , where is the number of atoms. The magnetic susceptibility is defined by
Show that the solid obeys Curie's law at high temperatures. Compute the susceptibility at low temperatures and give a physical explanation for the result.
Paper 1, Section II, J
comment(a) What does it mean to say that is a martingale?
(b) Let be independent random variables on with and . Further, let
where
Show that is a martingale with respect to the natural filtration .
(c) State and prove the optional stopping theorem for a bounded stopping time .
Paper 1, Section I, 2F
commentState Liouville's theorem on the approximation of algebraic numbers by rationals.
Suppose that we have a sequence with . State and prove a necessary and sufficient condition on the for
to be transcendental.
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentDerive the wave equation governing the pressure disturbance , for linearised, constant entropy sound waves in a compressible inviscid fluid of density and sound speed , which is otherwise at rest.
Consider a harmonic acoustic plane wave with wavevector and unit-amplitude pressure disturbance. Determine the resulting velocity field .
Consider such an acoustic wave incident from on a thin elastic plate at . The regions and are occupied by gases with densities and , respectively, and sound speeds and , respectively. The kinematic boundary conditions at the plate are those appropriate for an inviscid fluid, and the (linearised) dynamic boundary condition is
where and are the mass and bending moment per unit area of the plate, and (with ) is its perturbed position. Find the amplitudes of the reflected and transmitted pressure perturbations, expressing your answers in terms of the dimensionless parameter
(i) If and , under what condition is the incident wave perfectly transmitted?
(ii) If , comment on the reflection coefficient, and show that waves incident at a sufficiently large angle are reflected as if from a pressure-release surface (i.e. an interface where ), no matter how large the plate mass and bending moment may be.